Date:  Tue, 28 Oct 1997 13:15:09 -0500
From:  Beverly Flanigan <FLANIGAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU>
Subject: Re: PC Dictionaries?

  I'm much less worried about dictionaries' inadequate or inexact
  definitions of words (though M-W's defs of the n-word seem exemplary)
  than I am about everyday use of them--witness the boy on the playground
  first labeling and then shunning another child. I'm also concerned
  about people who do not seem to realize that "nigger" is "perhaps the
  most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English" (M-W, 10th
  ed.). A non-American T.A. in our introductory linguistics program may
  (perhaps) be excused for not knowing the word's cultural history
  ("After all, it's just a word"); the rest of us cannot.